Pastor's Devotions by Tim Harris

I’m going to admit to you, I’m not very good at waiting. Whether I’m sitting in my car waiting for the light to turn green, waiting on a long line in the supermarket, or waiting for Kim to come downstairs so we can leave the house, I tend to get a bit impatient—especially when the wait becomes longer than I expected. I know many of you are the same! This time of year, however, waiting just part of the normal course of things. We wait on long lines in the stores to pay for our merchandise. We wait in the extra traffic that is on the roads. We wait for packages to come in the mail. We wait for family to arrive to celebrate with us. We wait to give or receive that special gift. We wait…and we wait….and we wait. Yes, it’s the season of waiting! That’s what the season of “Advent” (which begins this coming Sunday) is about; it is meant to be a season of waiting. The word technically means, “arrival” or “appearance.”   It refers to the arrival or appearance of our S...

I know I’ve written much about my birdfeeder and the joys and challenges it has brought into my life (think squirrels!).   Well, my birdfeeder has also led me to make some discoveries.   One of those is a bird called a nuthatch. It’s a cute little bird with a long beak and a very interesting way of doing things. You see, a nuthatch walks down a tree trunk or bird feeder, looking for food, upside down.   That’s right, it goes headfirst! We might say that, the nuthatch is a counter-culture bird.   Whereas other birds will land on the bottom of the feeder and eat from the shelf filled with seed that is right in front of them, the nuthatch will start at the top of the feeder and make its way down the feeder’s side headfirst until it can reach the seed.   It will then stay there I an upside down position, eating until it is done—at times even moving around the feeder sideways, but always maintaining an upside down position.   It’s really a very ...

Have you noticed how many forms of communication you get from your doctor, dentist, mechanic, supermarket, etc.?   We receive emails, text messages, phone calls, and mailings to remind us of our upcoming appointments, to let us know it’s time to get our cars serviced, or to make us aware of the latest sale.   It seems that for all of our forms of communication, it has become harder and harder to figure out how to communicate. As a society, we are having what I might call, a communication crisis! Kim and I have noticed it in our work at the church.   For all the effort that goes into putting out information via email, Facebook, text messages, etc., there are still lots of people who seem to not know what is going on.   If we send out an email notice, we need to also send out a text message to let people know that they have received an email—or, else they may never read the email (we are hoping that they will at least read their text message!).   ...

I know this is a bit of a strange topic, but I’m sure most of you have experienced it.   On garbage pickup day, long before it ever reaches my house, I can hear the sound of the garbage truck that is coming through our neighborhood to pick up our garbage.   As the truck makes its way through the neighborhood, it stops and starts and then stops and starts, over and over again. And, each time it stops its brakes make a sound, almost like they are crying out a warning to those of us who have not yet brought our garbage to the curb. In fact, once again this morning the cry of the brakes caused me to run outside and quickly pull out our garbage can before the truck showed up.   I was thankful for the warning, or else I would have been left with a full garbage can waiting for next week’s pickup.   This is the way they do it in my neighborhood! Warnings can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes.   The notification from the weather bureau, the road ...